


Abyss

by taichara



Category: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 15:00:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: What Quan thought, and saw, at the end.





	Abyss

Some things you weren't supposed to see.

Things like your children dying before you, or your kingdom's future in flames, or your loved ones warped and ruined into twisted unrecognizable things.

Or what your insides looked like.

Really it was that last one that stood out to Quan. 

But he was fairly certain --

\-- as he fought to stare through the blood-dimmed darkness gnawing away his vision, as he clawed in futile desperation at thought and agony and _life_ while Ethlyn's crumpled body huddled beside him and the monster spoke encouraging words _how dare he_ to his daughter plucked from her mother's dying arms --

\-- oh, he was fairly certain that he had a notion what his innards looked like now.

That would certainly explain the blood.

And the cold.

The cold that even white-hot rage could not drive from his limbs.

He could do nothing.

Shortly -- Noba be _damned_ for it -- he'd _be_ nothing.

Fragments flickered before his eyes now, swimming in the blackness that rolled in faster. 

The ghost-image of Sigurd, waiting for the van of Leonster soldiers that would never come, came and went in the flutter of dead wings.

Replaced all too quickly by the shade of Finn, also waiting, also anxious, left behind, left to mind an armful of young babe now never to see his sire's face, never to know his mother's touch --

But that _bastard_ did not, at least, have rapacious talons on both of his children.

The dark rolled in like velvet, washing away the cold, the lingering agony that spilled the last of his life's-blood across the sands.

But Leif could have no greater guardian.

_do better by him than his father did_

It was the last brief prayer to linger on Quan's lips.

Then the black jaws closed.


End file.
